Fighting Naturalists
by OriginalProxy
Summary: Terminal City has come a long way since the seige, but the transgenics are still working to develope as a society. MA
1. Convince Me

DISCLAIMER: all I own in relation to Dark Angel is my DVD box sets. Characters and settings are the rightful property of James Cameron and 20th Century Fox, no copyright infringement is intended. I'm just scribbling for fun.

Chapter One: I can talk her into liking anything… except me.

"So you'll talk to Max about it?" the rat-faced trans-human asked.

"I'll argue your case, yeah," Alec agreed sliding the crumpled fifty into his pocket. "I know she'd pay attention to it through normal channels, though, and I make no guarantees that she'll turn this into her next crusade."

"We're not looking for a crusade, we just need something done," the shorter chimera said, wrinkling his nose for emphasis, "Sparky wasn't the first in our building to be inconvenienced by the glitch, he was just the first to be injured by it."

"I said I'd do something, Caesar, and I will, word of honor," the X-5 promised. Caesar smiled, showing off large rodent teeth.

"I knew we could count on you, Alec," he said, "Thank you."

As the trans-human left his office, Alec prepared to close up shop. It was nearly seven-thirty and he felt a twelve hour day should be sufficient, even for Terminal City's only alderman.

"Max know you're on the take?" asked a feminine voice from his doorway.

"Huh?" he articulately inquired, looking up at the gorgeous brunette blocking his exit.

"I asked if my sister knew you took bribes to 'bring things to her attention'," Jondy elucidated.

Alec rolled his eyes and returned them to his desk, packing up his files. "Max is the one who gave me the job, endorsing Alderman Alec the way she did. With over a thousand transgenics in TC, her extreme hands-on approach to leading would never work. Theoretically that's still how she runs her game, anyone can come to her at anytime and if she thinks they need help, she'll solve their problem, but Max is smart enough to know that she's the savior of the entire planet. If she'd taken this seat on the Common Council, they'd have deferred to her until they got sick of deferring, and issues wouldn't get properly checked out, so she gave me the official sticker."

"And that's got what to do with you taking bribes?" the female X-5 asked, grinning and making herself comfortable on Alec's sofa.

"No one thinks their concerns are worth Max's time. Well, that's not entirely true, those of us who were on her de facto command crew before and during the siege aren't intimidated by a little thing like her single handed halting of Armageddon. Still, you apparently heard Caesar. Sparky, his cousin, has second and third degree burns on twenty percent of his body from when his space heater exploded during a power surge—symptom of a faulty generator that's been wreaking havoc on their building for almost a week. Caesar doesn't think it's worth Max crusading. He wouldn't have gone to Max with it at all, but me, I'm easy to talk to."

"So you take their money and everyone's too afraid of Max to report you?" she teased. Jondy really did like Alec, so she kept the laughter in her voice. She didn't want him to think she was really accusing him of anything.

"Paying me makes them comfortable," he answered without malice, "it gives me a motivation for helping that they can understand and keeps me from being some unapproachable saint. Plus, sometimes I have to earn it. Caesar's problem is something Max is bound to notice in the reports when they're filed tomorrow afternoon, all coming to me really did was move it up in the queue-- it will get solved tonight, but… tag along to Max's office with me," he suggested, rising with his briefcase in hand.

"Alright," she said, getting up and following him.

"You'll see when we talk," he stated, then said nothing else, because he was knocking on Max's door, about a hundred feet away from his own.

"Yeah?" a muffled voice called through the door.

"I've got a pizza here for the mayor of Terminal City, but no one will tell me who that is," Alec said, smirking as he plopped into a chair across from her desk. Jondy made herself comfortable in another red chair. She liked Max's office better than Alec's, even though it lacked a sofa. Alec's was posh—leather and black metal—everything was expensive and showed good taste, but at the same time slightly uncomfortable. She could tell that he kept his office to impress others, while Max's was to make visitors comfortable. Her chairs for visitors were plush, if not overstuffed, her surfaces were all hardwood, and her curtains were drawn wide to show a beautiful moon rising out over the Space Needle.

"Quitting early?" Max asked Alec, not looking up from her papers. Jondy looked at Alec curiously. He showed no sign of being hurt, but then it wasn't a very sharp barb. Jondy knew her sister didn't expect others to be able to work 24/7 the way she could, but she didn't really hear a joke behind her words.

"Oh Maxie, you know I just can't wait for these little chats of ours, that's the only reason I ever cut out early, it's the best part of my day," Alec responded, far too much sincerity in his voice for it to be the truth.

"Don't call me Maxie," she snapped. Then she sighed, putting her combat boots up on her desk comfortably. "What's up?"

"Plenty," Alec answered cheerfully. "But talking is such thirsty work, I'm not sure I'll be able to manage without some sort of refreshment."

Max rolled her eyes and reached into a refrigerator behind her desk, tossing a soda to Alec. "You want anything baby sister?"

"Sure," Jondy said, once again surprised by the way her sister treated Alec. She'd arrived in Terminal City at long last a week ago. Max was, in some ways, exactly as she remembered her. They'd talked for hours together, exactly as they had back at Manticore, when lack of sleep let them bond closer to each other than they had with any of their other siblings. She was still Max, she still had that indefinable something that made it impossible to know her and not love her. They were instantly intimate, and Jondy felt like an idiot for staying away so long.

At first it had been necessity. Zane, in charge since Zach's disappearance and apparent death during the attack on the genetic lab, had ordered the '09ers to stay away from Seattle during the siege unless it was clear Max was going to need help. Max could take care of herself and she had a veritable army of X5s shut up with her, according to the news reports. Krit had more reliable reports from Logan Cale saying that everything would be fine, but the escapees still massed in Canada, waiting to see if they could help. They didn't want to set anything off, but they would be there if their sister needed them.

Then, when everyone else had gone in, after the siege was over and Max was a world-wide heroine, Jondy had remained. She was afraid that she wouldn't know her sister after everything that had gone down. She was afraid that in finding a new Max, she would lose the Max she'd been searching for ever since the escape. Jondy felt like an idiot because in every way that mattered, Max was still her sister—a perfect combination of brutal honesty, keen observation, and genuine feeling. That was why Jondy couldn't believe how mean she was to Alec.

"Coke?" asked Max, tossing her one as she nodded. "So, Mr. Alderman," Max asked, popping her soda under Alec's nose to emphasize the A in alderman before putting her feet back on the desk, "What do you have for me?"

"To start off, Fred is running low," Alec began, his voice cheerful and upbeat, although something in his eyes told Jondy he wasn't starting with this because it would be the easiest sale.

"Already?" an unhappy Max protested. "We just managed to score four for him last month and those things don't come cheap!"

"Yeah, Max, but you forget Doc milked him for venom about twelve times this month. It isn't his fault that he gets hungry, and I know he tries to supplement with other things. I've seen him eat chicken eggs, even though he claims they make him queasy and you can't deny that he can't keep anything other than eggs down at all." Alec argued, keeping his voice light, as though no one could possibly see another side to this situation.

"Four a month is just plain expensive, Alec," Max stated dangerously.

"It is expensive," he agreed, "but Fred needs to eat. He's a useful guy to have around, Doc says his venom is absolutely fascinating, and he put his training to good use during the siege. It isn't his fault that he isn't an artist and doesn't look normal enough to get some crummy ordinary job that will let him buy his own Ostrich eggs at a hundred bucks a pop—if he's lucky."

"And we can't afford him creating a scandal by getting a job that would allow him to put his skills as an assassin to use," Max said, apparently finishing a thought—or this wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation. "I'll bump it up to a priority one acquisition."

"Thanks," Alec said, shooting her a grin.

"He eats ostrich eggs? Gross!" Jondy said, feigning disgust.

"That's what I said," Max agreed, with a triumphant grin. "I don't know why Manticore would make it so physiologically difficult for him to survive on anything else."

"It was a mistake, I'm sure," Alec observed, ignoring the sarcasm.

"Shut it, pretty boy; unless that's all you've got for me, in which case you can feel free to vacate my office, even if you did deliver my sister." Max waved her can angrily in Alec's direction, but she wasn't mad enough to take her feet off the desk, so he ignored her.

"The generator for the apartment building on the corner of Oak and Tinga is on the fritz," he began.

"Why didn't they file with Tech Ops?" cut in Max. Jondy knew her sister, and although there was a rude, almost irritated note in her voice, she could tell it was there _because_ she cared about the residents, not because she was unsympathetic.

"They did, two days ago, but for some reason, no one's checked it out yet. Caesar, a--"

"I know him," Max said, cutting Alec off again, "Trans-human, quiet, writes poetry."

"That's him," Alec agreed, "anyway, he had some engineering back at Manticore, not enough for Tech Ops, but some, and he tried to fiddle with it himself to keep it going before Dix's boys got to it. Whatever he did started surges, which blew out a space heater in one of the apartments, seriously injuring another trans-human named Sparky."

"Will he be okay?" the hard-assed, leather- bound dominatrix inquired with no small concern.

"Second and third degree burns, but he should be back to normal in a few weeks," Alec answered promptly.

"Why didn't I know about this?" Max then asked, slightly irritated.

"You didn't know yet because it happened an hour ago. Caesar shut off the generator entirely and came to me. I'm sure Doc will have a report for you shortly, although I doubt you'll get it until tomorrow, you know how these things go—people who aren't you like to sleep during this night-time thing." Alec smirked and Max pulled a book from the shelves behind her and tossed it at his head. He dodged and it clattered harmlessly against the wall.

"I do not have unreasonable expectations! I just like to know when someone gets hurt," she growled, snapping up the phone on her desk.

"Hey Luke," she said after a second of silence, "What are you doing about the power situation for the apartments on Oak and Tinga?"

There was a pause while Luke obviously made some reply. "Right, but the generator had to be taken down entirely earlier tonight, it wigged and the surge caused somebody to get hurt pretty badly. Right, I'll talk to Mole about that, but security isn't our only concern. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I hope you do, too. You'll go yourself? Thanks. No really, I mean it, you're wonderful. Without you TC would fall to ruin. Thanks, same to you." Max hung up her phone.

"He's got it covered," she said, unnecessarily. Alec didn't seem to mind having their little meeting interrupted because Max wanted to fix something immediately. Jondy imagined that it happened often enough, her sister wasn't really one for waiting.

"What I don't get is why Alec came to you first anyway," Jondy stated. "Couldn't you have just called Luke?"

"Could have, but I'm not Max." Alec explained without actually explaining anything. "He'd have gone if I asked, but not as quickly. And we all know Max'll follow this up, visit Sparky in the hospital, inspect the generator herself no later than tomorrow morning, and generally work the job. Me, I'm going to go out for a drink, maybe find a pretty X4 who's terribly impressed by my position and have a fabulous night, which would be utterly spoiled by actually having to do work."

"Because you're a bastard," Max finished conversationally.

"Indeed." Alec agreed. "Speaking of bitches, the Naturalists came to see me again today."

"I'm going to ignore your segue in favor of asking what they wanted." Max said her feet moving themselves to the floor while she leaned over her desk with genuine interest.

"The same thing they always want. Shalala's heat is in a week or two so I think she's feeling more anxious than usual."

"Sorry to butt into TC business," Jondy interrupted, "but who are the Naturalists?"

"They're a group, mostly X series, who believe we aren't like humans, and thus should abandon the human morals and societal practices we were raised with," Max answered. "At least, that's their party line. In practice they want females to have the choice to wander freely while in heat. I'm not about to let that one happen until we have a two thirds male vote in favor of the idea."

"Male vote?" asked Jondy.

"No female ever died—or killed anyone—after being exposed to another female in heat," Alec explained with his trademark cheer.

"I think they're complete idiots for wanting to be out and about during their heat while it's not actually driving them crazy, but I try not to let my personal opinions influence policy," Max said, tossing a light grin at her sister.

"You've just never gone into heat with another X-5," Jondy answered, a little leer crossing her lips.

"And you have?" Alec inquired. "Do tell!"

"Yes," Max agreed, not entirely disinterested, "please satisfy Alec's over stimulated libido with randy tales featuring one of my brothers. Was it Zach?"

"Krit, actually," Jondy grinned, "We were about sixteen. Every other time I've gone into heat has been vaguely, or not so vaguely, dissatisfying, but Krit was different. Hell, it was so good I almost disobeyed Zach's direct order that we split up."

"What happened?" Max asked.

"I was kicking it as a pickpocket in a gang in Nevada at the time," Jondy said, getting into her story, "when I went into heat. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and I wasn't too happy about it, but I figured it caused a whole lot more of a headache when I fought it, so I didn't lock myself up or anything stupid like that."

"Anything stupid like my current mandates on TC?" asked Max innocently.

"You know that's different," Jondy answered, rolling her eyes at her defensive sibling. "Anyway I went out to a bar looking for action, a scenario I'm sure my sister is familiar with. I found it, some muscle bound twenty something that was more than willing to grope me on the dance floor and seemed perfectly happy with the prospect of taking me home. Then some little Hispanic boy about my age walked right up to us and pulled him off of me as though he was a piece of lint stuck to my shirt. I wasn't at all displeased, not even when my 'date' took offense and tried to fight the little usurper, and the little boy handed him his ass. I stopped him from killing the guy, but I wasn't even thinking about it that way, I just wanted him in my apartment immediately. It wasn't until we started to come down, after two days of solid sex, that we even said hi, although we'd seen one another's barcodes by then. We hung around together for one truly amazing month."

"But wait a sec," Alec interrupted, "Krit is mated with Syl, isn't he?"

"Did you hear me say we fell in love and bought a house to set out making babies?" Jondy inquired sweetly.

"No, just," Alec frowned, "Usually if you don't end up mated after going through heat together you don't stay a couple. Not that I know much about those 'lasting relationship' things."

"Well, whatever that's about, Krit was also my brother, who I'd just discovered after being alone for six years. The sex was mostly a side dish—a really, really good side dish that made hanging around with him a whole lot more fun," Jondy answered. "But after about a month, Zach showed up. He'd found us, he said, because looking for two X5s was a lot easier than looking for one. He told us we had to split up and leave Nevada, and after a whole lot of arguing, we all agreed. There were no promises between us, and I'm certainly not hurt that Krit wound up with Syl, they're perfect for each other."

"So you had a good experience," Max said, giving her sister a phony smile and a thumbs up, "Good for you. If Zach had been in town a month before he showed up, we'd have one less brother than we do now."

"Like I said, Max," her sister said, holding up two hands in a placating gesture, "I've got nothing against your voting system. The TC situation is totally different from being one of twelve X5s in the real world. All I'm saying is, I can understand the desire your Naturalists are feeling, whether or not it's incredibly selfish. Heat isn't just about finding a mate."

"Although all the mated couples walking around in perfect bliss aren't really doing much to keep the ranks of the Naturalists down," Alec muttered. "Every female in Terminal City seems to be looking for a mate." Then he shot a guilty look up at Max. Jondy wondered if he was about to be punished for misogynistic behavior, but her sister was staring out the window at the moon.

"Do you think she's prettier than me?" the unofficial mayor asked without turning from the window.

Jondy suddenly had absolutely no idea what her sister was talking about.

"Yeah, Max," Alec rolled his eyes comically, "in spite of the fact that you were perfectly designed to be someone's ideal of beauty and she's the third rate inheritor of some random blonde hair genes, there is something inexplicable about her that renders her a nymph compared to mortals."

Blonde hair clicked, and Jondy remembered what Max had said about "the first love of my life" and some virus thing that kept them from touching—he had a fiancé that Max called Blondie. While this revelation was occurring to Jondy, Max was shooting Alec a dirty look.

"You went for her," she muttered.

Alec leered at his beautiful friend. "Max, we all know my criteria: pulse, breasts, and willing. Apparently, Logan's standards are just as low as mine."

Max shook her head. "I'm being stupid again. Asha's a good woman. S1W, strong in the struggle, I like Asha. I'm just being petty."

"From what you told me, you've been hit hard," Jondy frowned at Alec's sarcasm, starting to understand why Max was mean to him, like it would hurt him to offer a sympathetic ear right now.

"I never said I'd been hit hard," Max said, her eyes flicking nonchalantly between Jondy and Alec. Jondy noticed, but she kept going, hoping to shame the male transgenic for his casual attitude toward her sister's pain.

"No," she agreed, "You just said you'd embarrassed yourself rather spectacularly by confessing that you loved him and never wanted to be with anyone but him once you realized that he was serious enough about Blondie to propose. And then he dropped you on your ass and told you it was over, that he didn't love you anymore, still wanted to be your friend, and hoped you'd stand up in his wedding in some random capacity. Right, that sounds like a glancing blow to me."

Jondy was rather surprised when the secretly dirty look she was shooting at Alec was met by a very brief, very angry look from the other transgenic.

Max forced a smile, not looking at either of them, "Yeah, I guess that counts as a hit, but Logan and I had been broken up for months—hell, a year even—before it came to that. We were never even like that; anyway, it was just mostly wishful thinking on my part."

"Bullshit, Max," Alec cut in softly, "you know he's only settling because he can touch her. You know that, even if he hasn't said it. You're still his perfect woman, and you have every right to be upset that he didn't live up to his knight in shining exoskeleton billing."

"Logan wouldn't be with her if he didn't love her," Max argued. Apparently she was arguing with the window, because she still wouldn't look at either transgenic.

"He loves her alright," Alec growled, causing Max to wince, "just not as much as he loved you."

"I really don't want to talk about this anymore," Max cut in, her voice suddenly firm and her eyes meeting Alec's. "If you don't drop it, I'm going to remember that just because I don't have a Zero Tolerance policy when it comes to your existence, I was never really in favor of it—unless you _want_ me to teach you the meaning of the word defenestrate."

"Hey, you were the one who brought it up," Alec pointed out defensively. Max stared at him, cocking one eyebrow. "But I am more than willing to prove I am the bigger person by dropping it immediately," he added quickly. "What do you want to do about Shalala?"

"I suppose I should go and talk with her, see if I can make her understand," Max answered, propping her feet back up on the desk, a seeming sign that everything was alright. "If she insists on it, we could be facing another vote. Do you think anything has changed since the last one?"

Alec shook his head. "Maybe a few of the swing votes will—well—swing, but she's still only got about a third of the male X5s in her camp. I don't see any reason for her to want another vote; it won't come out any different."

"Right, well then it's up to me to make her see the sense of the vote, even if she doesn't like the outcome," Max murmured. "That shouldn't be a whole lot worse than pulling teeth."

"Better you than me," Alec smirked.

"Whatever," Max bit out, her feet returning to the floor. "You got anything else for me, or did you save the best for last?"

"That's everything for today," Alec said, his manner businesslike and impersonal.

"Great," Max returned, looking at the time, "I was worried I'd be stuck in here with you for a lot longer." She grinned and turned to Jondy, "I should talk to the Naturalists now, big sister, but if you want we can meet up at The Tourniquet later for a game of pool?"

"Sure thing," Jondy grinned back. 'And I can poke you until you tell me why you act the way you do around Alec,' she added mentally.

Max left the two in her office with a cheerful "Later" that seemed to be directed entirely at Jondy. The female transgenic turned to her male counterpart, confusion written plainly on her face.

"What?" Alec asked without looking at her. He lifted his briefcase to his lap.

"Just wondering why Max is the sister I love and remember perfectly unless we're around you—when she morphs into someone I barely recognize," the woman answered, shrugging and tossing her dark hair out of her face.

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," Alec informed her, standing up and heading for the door. Jondy followed.

"You're her Alderman, her official whatever, kicking it to her—doing her a favor if you look at it like that—and she didn't even say bye to you," she observed. "That's way harsh. That's not Max."

"Maybe you don't know Maxie as well as you think you do," Alec murmured. That pissed Jondy off because it cut; it reminded her of the time she'd wasted that could have been spent getting to know her favorite sibling. Alec didn't know Jondy very well at all, though.

"You're really very good at that," she complimented. He looked sideways at her. "If I didn't get what you were doing, I'd be shouting right now. Hell, I might even be trying to kick your ass. You did even better with Max, earlier; I couldn't even tell what you were doing." She shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry I messed it up. I thought you were being an insensitive prick."

"I am an insensitive prick," he murmured. "I like it. It works for me."

"No, you realized that Max was dealing and didn't want to talk about it—not really—which I didn't, even though she's my sister. I'm sorry I was too focused on the weirdness between the pair of you to see what you were doing," she apologized, hoping it would be enough because she really wasn't into this whole swallowing-her-pride thing.

He looked at her with clear green eyes. "It's cool," he murmured. "She needs to get it off her chest every so often. It never hurts to talk, right?"

"Guess you know her pretty well, then?" she asked casually. "You can talk her into buying eggs and out of depression. So why didn't she say goodbye to you?"

"Yeah," Alec said, his pace speeding up just slightly, "I can talk Max into anything. I can make her like any idea. I just can't get her to like me, and I don't know why."

Jondy stopped, instinctively knowing he wanted to be left alone, and she let him walk hurriedly away from her.


	2. Let's Talk

Chapter 2: Let's talk about all the good things, and the bad things, that can be.

The unofficial mayor of Terminal City favored the direct approach. Every transgenic knew this fact well enough, so knocking on doors wasn't really required. She walked right in and sat in an armchair across from Lila and Shalala, both of whom looked slightly nonplussed—but not truly surprised to see her. Max hunched over, resting her elbows on her thighs and folding her hands comfortably before looking up at the apartment's residents.

"Alec said you wanted to talk to me," she informed them cheerfully.

Shalala nodded, "We did. Thank you for coming."

"Can I get you anything? We've got beer, soda, and a pot of coffee that probably hasn't been sitting out for more than a couple of hours," Lila offered congenially.

"Nah," Max replied, "I'm cool. I'm mostly just wondering what's changed."

The pair on the sofa exchanged a look. "Nothing has changed, Max," Shalala said softly, "But that includes the fact that we are in the right."

"What do you want me to do about it?" Max asked with a trademark grin, "I can't overturn a vote."

"You could give it a trial period," Lila stated. "No vote, just a few weeks, two or three females allowed to go free during heat so that all of the males find out what it is like—really like—to fight for a potential mate."

"And have a couple of deaths on my head for breaking the Terminal City Pact?" Max held Lila's eyes steadily and answered, "No thanks. If you want me to hold a male vote for your trial period we can do that."

Shalala shook her head slowly. "It wouldn't pass. We've run our own polls, but we've also run the statistics behind them. There isn't a single male who's fought for a mate during heat that voted against our cause. A few with mates abstained, but even most of the mated voted with us. If they could just experience it, I know they would understand, believe even, that it is worth the outside risk to life and limb."

"You don't even know what it's like for them," Max argued, "You just like to sound like you do, but you only feel what you feel during heat. Frankly, I'm a little surprised you're such a big proponent of it. I'd have killed to have that birth control stuff that Manticore gave you guys. Hell, I still would. Too bad none of the lab techs were also transgenics; maybe they could mix us up a batch."

"You don't know any better than they do," Lila said earnestly. "Of course you can't be sated with an ordinary who isn't even a potential mate."

"Well," Max cut in, "Whether or not I 'let myself go' as everyone seems to be pushing me to do isn't really the point of this little talk. The point is how you plan to get the male vote in your favor, because there's no way you're doing anything without one."

"That's not fair!" Shalala exclaimed, "You're not even giving us a chance to prove our point!"

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I have the power to give you a chance at anything," Max said firmly. "This is a problem for the male transgenics to figure out, they are the ones who have something to lose here, and frankly I think it's completely selfish to try it any other way."

"It's about the community," Shalala snapped. "This is a problem that affects the entire transgenic community and women should have a say in something that affects us too."

"Affects us," Max agreed, "but it doesn't kill us. I don't think any woman who would vote to sentence a guy that didn't do a thing wrong to death should get a vote in the first place."

Lila cut Shalala's retort off with a gentle hand on the woman's forearm. "You're entitled to your own opinion, derived from your own experience, Max," Lila said softly. "You are right; doing as we ask would go against the Terminal City Pact. You've never been a proponent of our cause and we have no reason to expect you to take our side. Further, we know you have spent years of your life subjugating the instincts encoded in your DNA, you would never want to have a pair of males fight over you like some Discovery Channel documentary." Max took a deep breath.

"Look," she said, "Your trial period is a good idea. It's innovative and shows you're willing to look for a middle ground, which I appreciate. I'd be happy to speak in favor of it when calling for a vote, or do anything else that you think might help the vote swing for you. I just don't want to break the Pact."

Lila shook her head. "There's nothing you could do that would make the final vote in our favor," she murmured. "We already considered that route. Not that I don't appreciate the offer, but it's pointless."

"Then," Max gently informed them, "I'm sorry I'll have to leave you unsatisfied, because there's nothing I can do."

"Thank you for your time," Shalala murmured, not entirely impolite.

"Don't thank me," Max replied, "I did nothing to help you."

"No," Lila agreed, "but I think part of you wants to, so thank you for that."

Max smiled slightly at the females before leaving their home. The problem with the Naturalists was that they were activists who had once been soldiers. They were used to fighting battles and either getting their way or not getting another shot—the in-betweens of politics left them a lot of confusion. Still, as sympathetic as she was to the people behind the cause, she really couldn't back their idea. Manticore was responsible for a lot of junk in their DNA, even if Max didn't have any "junk DNA". When she was in a bad mood, Max blamed them for the fact that she would never go vegetarian and actually got a sick sense of pleasure out of killing live chickens that people scored for her. Heat was something idiotic that she blamed them for no matter how she was feeling.

Female heat was a practicality of life that Max had lived with since she was thirteen. The fact that most ordinaries looked like she was killing their puppy when she told them that—and how old he had been—really helped with her belief that Manticore was the root of all evil. Or maybe just a branch, the Familiars were the root after all. Max was prepared to go into heat three or four times a year and want to get with any remotely available male in sight. Max was not prepared for the fact that when she went into heat she would release pheromones that would make every X in her vicinity go primitive and get as pumped up about mating with her as she was about mating with them.

Luckily, Max had already been sedating and restraining herself to keep from killing Logan when they made that discovery. She also knew it was a combination that worked, so she was able to suggest it after the first few deaths. It was whole heartedly embraced and the resolution that the Naturalists hated so very much passed easily. Not that everyone followed her lead. Syl just locked herself up at home with Krit, which was perfectly fine. Max's only political problem with heat was the way males showing off for a female tended to kill one another, the whole mating vs. falling- in- love- over- an-extremely- extended- period- of- time- and- waiting- for- something- bad- to- happen- which- it- invariably- did was more of a personal dislike.

Still, Max felt bad for the Naturalists. They were learning that things didn't always go their way, even in a place like Terminal City that was designed for transgenics to live happily. That they even had to experience that made Max feel like she'd failed them, even though there was no way she could accommodate them. So as Max wandered through the streets of TC and decided she needed cheering up, she found her way to the home of one person she definitely hadn't failed.

"Hey there lil' fella!" she was greeted warmly by Joshua, who even looked up from his painting to acknowledge her.

"How's it hanging, big fella?" she answered, not bothering to suppress a grin at his paint covered overalls.

"New painting," he said, waiting for her to walk around and look at it. "Terminal City, Seattle," Joshua added. "Or maybe not, Max like the name?"

"I think it's appropriate," Max said, marveling at how well Joshua seemed to have mastered pointillism. It was an extremely well drawn view of Seattle, the space needle and many of her favorite landmarks looking almost like a photograph, but Terminal City was almost as detailed, made up of millions of tiny dots—a little brighter and more colorful than the rest of post-pulse Seattle. Max looked at the painting for a little while before speaking. "I'd say the artist is trying to express not just the fact of Terminal City being separate from the rest of Seattle, but the dream of Terminal City—that it is almost a different reality."

"Part right," Joshua grinned at her, "all right for what you said, but more too. Because Terminal City isn't all here yet—will be soon, but not yet—that's why it's tiny dots."

Max smiled. Not only at the fact that he was right, but also because after all this time he still used phrases like tiny dots to describe complex artistic concepts that he probably grasped better than any other person alive. She wondered sometimes if it was his tongue. He read and wrote in complete sentences just below the level of Dix the Transgenic Dictionary, but when he spoke aloud it was as though he was a child, unable to get his mouth around the more difficult words, or even keep himself from speaking in the third person. Was there just something too primitive about his body that kept his mind a prisoner? Whatever the reason, his art was the best voice he had and Joshua used it.

Joshua spoke to just as many people as Max did, and he was the real savior of the transgenics no matter how much praise Max received. Rita had proven one of the truest friends a transgenic could have when after the siege she approached them with a solution to any possible money problems. The next issue of the Artist's Weekly reran their review of Joshua No. 1 with the added information that it was the first work of a transgenic artist. The lucky woman who bought it now had a piece worth a lot more than the twelve thousand she'd originally paid. Joshua was being hailed as the Andy Warhol for the Transgenic Era and all of the earlier work that Max had saved from his fireplace sold immediately and for a lot more than Max would have thought. It seemed everyone wanted to see the world through the eyes of a transgenic, and luckily, Joshua wasn't one of the greedier transgenics. He would have had every right to keep the money and no one would have said a word to him about it, but he simply handed it to Max. Max knew exactly what needed to be done, and Joshua didn't doubt that for a minute.

Joshua's work bought and paid for Terminal City. Every building within the fences that still kept ordinaries safe from the biotoxins was owned by the TCT only a few months after the siege ended. Granted, no one tried to jack the transgenics on barely habitable buildings that no one else had any use for, but the cost of their little corner of the city eventually added up to several million dollars. A million—a number that Max was scarcely used to thinking about and she'd gone through a lot more money than most of the other Transgenics had in the outside world. But "A Portrait of Ames White" was sold to the Premier of China for one point four million dollars and "Annie at Peace" brought a million pounds even from the Queen of England. Joshua made more in the months immediately following the siege than Max had stolen in thirteen years. Almost made her think that she should give up fencing and start painting art.

Joshua was gifted, though. A few other aspiring artists in TC made their attempts—and not all of them were bad—but Joshua was the best from the beginning. At least, according to Rita and the rest of the art world, Max was more of an art history buff than a modernist.

"So," Max asked, breaking herself from her little flashback, "what do you think we need to do to connect the dots?"

Joshua laughed and shook his head. "That's Max's job. Joshua wouldn't take Max's job for a river of paint and a mile of canvass."

There it was: what Max really liked best about Joshua. The best thing he could think of, that anyone could ever give him, was just more room to make art. He was really happy, and no matter how many Isaacs and Naturalists she was responsible for, she was responsible for Joshua, too. That was why seeing Joshua always made her feel better.

"How are things going with you know who?" she asked, mimicking Alec's smirk unconsciously.

Joshua blushed. "Don't know who, Max," he said, dipping his brush back in his pallet.

Max attempted to refresh his memory, "Sweet, about five seven, eyes like the ocean, legs from here to there…"

"Drop it, Max," Joshua growled, shooting a look over his shoulder at one of the few Annie paintings he'd kept for himself. Max knew it was one of his first—painted while she was still alive.

"You can't do that Joshua," she said softly. "You can't spend the rest of your life alone just because you can't be with your first love. Going after Sarah won't mean you care any less for Annie, and the fact that you cared for Annie once won't change how you feel for Sarah."

"Joshua knows that, Max," the deep dog-faced man answered, and she knew he really did understand. "Joshua will act on it when Max does." Max swallowed. He was right; people in glass houses really shouldn't throw stones. She was tempted to stay there and talk through things with him, knowing that it would put a lot of things in perspective for both of them, but she didn't have time. She also didn't really want to; she'd had her quota of Logan Talks today with Jondy and Alec.

"Listen," Max said, "I've got to swing by the hospital, Sparky got hurt today, but I'm going to swing by Tourniquet later tonight if you want to meet up and get your swerve on."

"Get my swerve on," Joshua agreed, laughing. "Hope Sparky's okay."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Max agreed, tossing a goodbye to her friend as she left him to his painting.

Max took the quickest rout to the Terminal City hospital by climbing the nearest fire escape and leaping from building to building. This also made it convenient for her to swing into one of the rooftop greenhouses to buy a bouquet of get well flowers. For the media's information these greenhouses grew a great deal of the food required to support Terminal City—and they did—but they also grew a few more luxurious items. After all, girls in TC still liked roses and sick people still needed flowers, and was it Max's fault that a few transgenics seemed to have converted to Herbal's religion since the escape? There were also quite a few medicinal plants grown, just in case they were ever cut off from drug companies again. Maria, an X3, who truly loved plants and seemed to have a particular affinity for their care offered a perfectly arranged bunch of wildflowers when she heard they were for Sparky. Max felt like she should be paying more than ten bucks for them, so she slipped another twenty under an empty pot when Maria looked down to wrap them. The florist would know who it was from, but she probably wouldn't do anything about it at that point. Max was used to this sort of deception to keep from feeling like she was cheating the people who she served.

Max leapt from the last roof, caught the infirmary's fire escape and rode it down to just in front of the entrance, releasing it and hearing the satisfying whirr as it slid back up to its place. The number one best thing about living in Terminal City was that no one looked twice at her. She pushed the double doors open and was directed to room four.

Room four was nice. The window had a good view of the mural across the street and the curtains were an eggshell lace number that matched the sheets. It hardly looked like a hospital room, except the monitors in the corner and the IV in Sparky's arm.

"How ya' feeling?" she asked, pulling up a chair and straddling it.

"Better," he croaked, although she couldn't really imagine what was so much better about it. Most of the transgenic's face was wrapped lightly in gauze.

"Gotcha flowers," she said, finding a vase on the bedside table and placing the bouquet in it, promising herself to find water for it later.

"Thank you," he said, trying for a smile that actually hid his grimace. Max settled her self back in the chair.

"They treating you okay in here, Sparky?" she asked, focusing completely on him.

"No complaints," Sparky answered, mildly surprised that Max knew his name, but figuring they must have told her on the way in.

"Yeah, they say you'll be back with your guitar in a week or two," she informed him hopefully.

Sparky blinked. Did she have people to brief her on stuff like this? "I guess so, but it's going to be hell living without it until I get feeling back in the arm."

"Isn't that a little bit of an exaggeration?" the mayor of Terminal City asked. "You only started hitting Tourniquet backing up Jace, like, three months ago. Now all of a sudden you're gonna die if you can't?"

Sparky smiled, forgetting that it hurt like hell. "I learned to play just after you let us out, just because I didn't dare do it in public until three months ago doesn't mean I can suddenly live without it." He paused for a moment and shot her a surreptitious look from underneath one bandage. "Plus, I'm not sure Jace's voice can cut it without my accompaniment."

"Hey now, that's one of my sisters you're talking about," Max shot back playfully. "And she still has a bassist, a saxophone player and a drummer to fill in the cracks. If she wants to play without you, she so totally could."

"If she buries the band trying to, it won't be my fault," he shrugged. "But then she'll probably never speak to me again, meaning I won't get to hang out with Max, and he's an awesome little guy."

"He is, isn't he," Max agreed, smiling. An awesome little guy who wouldn't be in the world without Max—before she even went after Manticore.

"Yeah," Sparky said, suddenly in a serious tone. "An awesome little guy who only exists because his mommy made a mistake in a big way back at Manticore. That's proof enough for me that they had it all backwards about mistakes."

"A baby should never be a mistake," Max agreed. "I was there when Jace found out about Little Max and even then I knew she wanted to be a mommy, even if Vincent couldn't be a daddy. I know she had to deal with a lot when she found out he was dead, even if she hadn't spoken to him, or needed him for a year."

"She talks about him sometimes," Sparky said, so focused on the discussion that he completely forgot about the painful burns. "An ordinary that really was kind to you back at Manticore was something to cherish. I know I never met one. She talks about how he found her when she was in heat… how he loved her… how he showed her what love was. There wasn't really a lot of love around Manticore, so that's something, right?"

"Yeah," Max said staring through the window at the mural that showed ordinaries and transgenics living together peacefully, "but it isn't everything. Jace had to learn love from him, so even if he'd lived to be around, would they ever really have been on even footing? And how could he play daddy to a transgenic baby? Because Little Max has all of the genes, the kid actually managed to jump from his chair to the top of the refrigerator to raid the cookie jar last week. How could a lab tech keep up with that? Would he have even wanted to?"

"So you, the great proponent for integration, are saying we should stick to our own kind?" he asked, more than curious he was wondering if this was the clone he'd seen once or twice and heard more than a few stories about.

"All I'm saying is Jace might be looking for someone a little more… empowered… to take on surrogate father duties. And maybe she might be taking applicants," Max tossed him a lascivious grin and got up. "Sweet dreams," she purred, leaving him alone and speechless.

Max made her way to her apartment by cutting through the park. Hinting to Sparky about Jace was definitely her good deed of the evening. Jace was ready to get back into the dating game and Sparky obviously had a crush on her—it could really work out. Plus, even if he had uncles by the dozen, little Max could use a father.

The park had once been a group of four of the most decrepit, condemnable buildings in Terminal City, so Max knocked them down and shipped out the rubble. They planted grass and saplings to show how dedicated the transgenics were to putting down roots. The media loved it, even the statue in the center that Luke and Dix had torn from twisted metal and wrought of iron. It was a monument to fallen soldiers and everyone that had not survived life as a transgenic.

Cutting through the park wasn't really a time saving short cut. It was a shorter walk, but Max always felt the need to stop when she got there. Maybe she had to pay her respects to the monument. Maybe the trees reminded Max of forests and Manticore or other things better left forgotten. Maybe Max just liked to stop and smell the green and growing things. Whatever it was, she always stood for a moment when she passed through.

A kid, maybe seven or eight years old, sprang almost two stories to snatch the Frisbee from the air before it struck the statue. He whipped it back along the same path before he even landed. "Watch the tombstone, Fixit," he yelped. Max laughed inwardly, the tombstone was a good nickname for it.

Kids weren't uncommon in the park, even this late—Max wasn't the only X series with shark DNA after all, but for some reason these children playing made her want to stay and watch. Max's evening definitely seemed to be revolving around children and the way you got them—it was probably the fault of the Naturalists, making her think about these things.

The redhead threw the Frisbee exceptionally far and the third player blurred after it, catching it and falling into a shoulder roll to slow himself painlessly before whipping at the first boy. The three were all laughing and loving every second of freedom.

Max wanted one of those. She wanted a little Max just like her nephew who would laugh and make mischief, never knowing what a prison felt like. Watching her child grow that way, Max would forget what bars felt like. It wouldn't happen, though. No matter how good she was with children, Max wasn't exactly the mothering type. Then there was the fact that the guy she'd sort of assumed would be Daddy was marrying someone else.

Besides, Max had a whole city to take care of, she didn't have time for a kid. She didn't even have time for a shower before she was due for her appearance at Tourniquet. She took one anyway. It was cold, which was to be expected as water heaters were generally on the low end of Tech Ops' to fix list. She could have had it looked at within an hour, but she understood why her shower was less important than Sparky's power and she was sure someone else in her building would have a complaint or two on file. If worse came to worse she would take a look at it herself in a week or two. In spite of Caesar's mistake, Max was confident enough in her own tinkering ability to either fix the problem or realize when she'd made a mess of things.

Max didn't have time to fix her own water heater; she definitely didn't have time for a kid. There were diapers and you always needed a babysitter. It was definitely more trouble than it was worth; she was only thinking about it because it was her evening theme. Max could never handle a baby alone, and Max was definitely not taking applicants for a father.

Max dried her hair and slipped into a good comfortable party outfit. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about children, now was the time to think about dancing. She had a feeling she should know who was playing tonight, but she didn't and she didn't really want to take the time to search her desk for the schedule she knew was hiding in one of the drawers. Alec had probably borrowed hers indefinitely anyway—he liked to do things like that just to piss her off.

That thought had the desired effect, all the way to Tourniquet she focused on how inconsiderate Alec was. At the bar, Jondy spent a good portion of the evening trying to argue his good points while the gentleman in question spent a good portion of the evening picking up Syl's clone, Roxie. This would have been more than enough to keep her thoughts away from truly unpleasant subjects, but a higher power seemed to want to apologize for the earlier portion of her day—Sarah, the beautiful canine trans-human herself, appeared just as Max was finishing a dance with Joshua. It didn't take too much pushing on Max's part for the two to dance together. All and all the night improved vastly and by the next morning, Max was able to push the Naturalists, mating and children out of her head entirely.


	3. Just Can't Fight It

Chapter 3: Just Can't Fight It

"Okay," Jondy said, "Take a deep breath and try again." Max pulled against the restraint with every ounce of her genetically enhanced strength. It didn't budge, she couldn't get out—she was effectively trapped.

"Alright," Jondy said, "Think you can get your feet out?" Max tried every muscle in her legs and every twisted contortionist combination she could think of. The leg restraints didn't give either.

"Nope," Max said, breathing a sigh of relief, "It's all good."

"You sure you want me to sedate you now," Jondy asked. "I could stay and read to you or something until you start going batty."

"Now would probably be better than later," Max answered, shaking her head a little. "I go through this in between phase where I think I might not be in heat yet, sometimes. I like to be unconscious before that starts."

"It's your party," Jondy agreed, pushing the hypodermic needle into her sister's forearm. "How long before this bitch kicks in?" she asked.

"Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and it will keep me out for the whole time, hopefully, so you don't need to check on me," Max said. "Maybe you could pop by once in about thirty six hours just to make sure I'm still out, but other than that, your job ends once I go beddy bye."

"You do know you're one of about twelve females who actually go to this extreme, right?" Jondy asked, making sure her sister knew how silly she was being.

"I know," she said, yawning slightly, "But I'm one of the only transgenics who would definitely kill someone if they got out."

"You're talking about Logan?" her sister assumed.

"It's the glasses. They make him all, sexy and intellectual," Max agreed, yawning again. "And the fact that I'm seriously considering jumping his bones right now, virus or no, would be the best sign that we're not a minute too early with that sedative."

Jondy would have said something more, but it was pointless, because her sister was asleep before the words left her tongue. It was a weird experience for Jondy to watch Max sleep—and not one she particularly enjoyed. Jondy had a lot of practice watching people sleep; boys, siblings, friends and roommates all nodded off at least once in her presence during their acquaintance, but Max was different. With Max, staying awake was a shared interest. Putting Max to sleep felt wrong on deeper levels than the ones Manticore had drilled in about being alert at all times. Jondy left the room in a hurry. She'd check back in thirty six hours, but not before.

When Max opened her eyes she knew immediately that something was wrong. She was on a comfortable bed with sunlight shining across her face, and she was no longer in restraints. She sat up, instantly alert and in a defensible position. Lila was standing in the doorway of a room Max didn't recognize, completely relaxed. Max let her guard fall.

"What happened? What am I doing here?" the mayor of Terminal City demanded.

"Remember about a week ago when we established that part of you wanted to help our cause, but couldn't?" the activist asked calmly. Max got a very bad feeling and her guard snapped back into place.

"It hasn't been anything like thirty six hours, has it?" she asked quietly.

"Very good," Lila agreed. "A friend in the hospital replaced your sedative with something milder when Doc wasn't looking. Who would want to hurt you, though? So of course no one checked it." Max was getting a very bad feeling. "You've been out for a little more than an hour if you care."

The bad feeling was all over the place, now, coupled with that itch she felt when she was just going into heat. "So what," Max asked, "You're just going to dump me into the middle of Operations and watch the fire works?"

"Of course not," Lila said, trying for placating. "It's your choice whether you want to help us or not. You're free to stay in here. Shalala is just out getting you something to eat in case you're hungry. If, however, you decide you want to help our cause, we certainly won't be stopping you."

Max felt her stomach drop out. "You really will just let me roam, won't you? That's the purpose of this little endeavor. Christ, don't you have a heart?"

"It isn't the dramatic spectacle you're making it out to be," Lila argued with a soft smile, as though Max was the child.

Max strode menacingly toward the other transgenic, who had the grace to back down slightly. "You don't know anything," she growled. "This is how I met Rafer and Darren and Eric and Leo and…. God, everything romantically wrong with my life since the escape is the fault of either heat or the virus and you want me to wander out where I can either meet some random X or run into Logan and kill him. Are you people fucking insane?"

Lila was cowering slightly, but she still had that patronizing smile, like she knew something Max did not. "We're trying to help you understand, Max," she said softly. "We wouldn't do this if we thought you would get hurt."

"I really want to kick your ass right now," Max grumbled.

"It wouldn't change the situation," Lila pointed out.

"It would make me feel better," Max shot back.

Luckily for Lila, Shalala chose that moment to interrupt with a tray. "How are you feeling, Max?" she asked, pointedly ignoring the 'patient's' aggressive posture.

Max grabbed the sandwich from the tray, ignoring the banana next to it. Could the girl be any more obvious, it was like she wasn't even trying to be secretive. And hot chocolate? It was a well known fact that chocolate was an aphrodisiac… Max wasn't going to touch it. She also wasn't going to look out of the window at that beautiful boy walking past. Six foot two easily with very nice arms. The sort of arms that… Max screamed, scaring the two females who were watching her.

She threw the sandwich at Lila. "I won't let you win. Ever. Now get out!" The soldiers knew when to retreat.

An hour later Max was climbing the walls. She'd never been cooped up this way during heat… except that one time she'd locked herself in the closet, but the door hadn't lasted this long, not once she was fully into it. Hanging out with OC was different, she'd spent the whole day outside. Max hadn't even seen a male since this bitch hit, and somehow that made it worse. Max was going through her mental library of every masculine anything she had ever seen naked. She was picturing practically every man she'd ever met in extremely compromising positions. In a moment of clarity, she shook it off and went back to her old stand bye of doing push ups.

Somewhere around two thousand five hundred and sixty nine push ups, Max had to start comforting herself with the idea that someone was bound to check on her and notice she wasn't there. That would lead to a search party. Alec was smart, and he would probably figure on the Naturalists having a part in this because it was during her heat, although that was slightly irrational. That didn't matter, someone would find her soon, and all she had to do was hang tough.

All Max had to do was keep it together until Alec kicked the door in to rescue her. Alec still owed her a rescue or two. Maybe it would be a shirtless rescue. Max was pretty sure there was a plausible reason or two out there for Alec to kick the door in shirtless. Max spent the next twenty minutes and twelve hundred push ups thinking about the naughty, naughty things she could do with a shirtless Alec.

When Max caught herself she spent another ten minutes and six hundred stomach crunches thinking about the possibilities of Logan rescuing her. When she finally caught what was wrong with that plan, she was firmly against the prospect of being rescued by anyone. Staying here, sedative or no, was her only real option. She left the room to look for a shower, but Lila regretfully informed her that their water was off, no hot or cold shower to be had.

"Where's your phone?" the prisoner inquired. "I'll have Luke over here to fix it in a jiffy."

"Nice try," Shalala smirked, "There is definitely no phone on the premises."

Lila and Shalala sat down in the living room. "Would you like to watch television?" Lila offered to her guest.

"No thank you," Max grunted. Shalala shrugged and picked up a magazine with a pretty boy actor on the cover. That might not have been on purpose, and the television comment was innocuous enough, so Max didn't really have enough evidence to justify killing them just yet.

"Can I get you anything?" Lila offered.

"Yeah," Max answered, "My sister Jondy." If she'd known there was no shower available, she never would have worked herself up with all of those push ups. Max was sure it increased her pheromone output, not to mention any increased blood flow was just plain bad.

"That was a lot less slick," Shalala commented. "The phone bit was much better."

"How about a game of cards?" asked Lila, who was still trying to be polite.

"I don't want to play cards," Max groaned, starting to pace the living room carpet.

"What do you want?" she asked again, "We are fully at your disposal."

Now if they were two male X5s fully at her disposal, Max would have quite a few ideas of what she wanted. "I need some air," Max grunted, moving to the front door. Shalala looked like she'd just discovered it was her birthday.

"Are you sure about that, Max?" Lila asked, her voice cutting into the little angry cloud Max had wrapped around herself. Max looked sharply at the other woman.

"No, I'm not," Max answered. "And I'm not leaving, you're right. The question is; why would you stop me?"

Lila glanced up at the wall clock. It was shortly after eleven a.m. "You've been here for about four hours and you have about thirty eight left until you're done with heat. When you choose to leave, it will be your own choice."

Max blinked. "One thing I'll say for you," She murmured, sitting down, "you're honest."

"So," Shalala offered, "Poker anyone?"

Three hours later, Max was throwing herself at the walls again. Cards had lasted for a little while, but she couldn't concentrate. She had to go back to push ups, but even that wasn't enough movement. She couldn't stand being this still, this cooped up. Max had a feeling that she was driving Lila and Shalala crazy, but they deserved every second of it. She couldn't think of a way to end this. She couldn't call anyone, she couldn't be sedated, and her old standbys: a shower and a motorcycle were unavailable. Actually, Lila might be willing to hand deliver her baby, but that would just send her zooming through TC spreading pheromones.

Max was pretty sure she was insane. She'd always suspected there would be something that was too much to take. Max hated being locked up—always had, but being trapped in a four and a half by two and a half foot box for a week without food and water when Manticore first recaptured her hadn't done much for that. This was worse than that, though. Now she was trapped without locks. Leaving might very well kill someone and staying was completely intolerable. Max needed air. She couldn't think of anything other than her need to move; that she happiest when she was going very, very fast on her motorcycle.

And if room to move just happened to contain a male or two, Max wouldn't object. She needed action. She was sick and tired of waiting. She hadn't been with anybody since Rafer and that was getting boring. She'd kissed Logan what? Once? Twice in that time span? Held his hand a few times with a latex virus shield firmly in place? A human being could not survive without touch. There were those studies with the babies that weren't held and how they all turned into brain dead sociopaths. Max remembered reading about it and thinking that she had to make up for all the lack of hugs back at Manticore or she might just kill someone.

Max might just kill someone if she didn't find a mate. All Max really wanted was a mate, somewhere in the back of her head she knew that. She'd always known that. Max wanted two shoes on the floor next to hers every morning. She wanted someone who would always have her back because it was just an extension of their own. For a few minutes, she almost had that with Logan. He wasn't her mate, but he could have been, his feelings for her were strong enough. He did things that only a mate would do, like lie down for days waiting to die because Max was dead and nothing was worth it if he thought Max was really dead. He cried for her and reached out to her and wanted her to be happy, only he didn't anymore. Max didn't owe him anything: he wasn't her mate and he never had been. That didn't change the fact that she wanted one.

In a city full of male transgenics—the perfect possible mates—Max had never been one to sit idly bye. She'd already unlocked the deadbolt when Lila asked her where she was going.

"To find a mate," Max stated, opening the door wide.

"Have fun," Shalala called after her. Max grinned. She intended to.

Max jumped down the two flights of stairs to the lobby of the apartment building and opened the door. It was a beautiful, sunny Terminal City afternoon. There were a few people around, Xs and trans-humans laughing and talking in small groups just outside of buildings or walking together on their way somewhere else.

It hit Max like a south paw: what was at stake. That step outside was completely selfish. Already the male Xs were looking up, turning toward her, trying to figure out what it was they smelled. She couldn't do this, couldn't take the risk, but the Naturalists' apartment couldn't take the assault it would get if Max tried to barricade herself there now.

Max ran. She needed a defensible position and she needed one fast. An old bank vault would be nice, maybe a meat locker. She needed to get out of sight, hopefully somewhere she couldn't get out of on her own, and she needed to do it five minutes ago. Like a nightmare, the male Xs were running after her and she wanted nothing more than to stop and meet them head on—to select the best for her mate.

Willpower or pigheadedness drove her onward. She couldn't think about hurting someone right now. She couldn't think about the deaths that came when males fought over females. Max couldn't even think about Terminal City—the dream that occupied her entire mind these days. Max could only think about stopping and choosing her mate, but her legs kept running. Maybe they would have continued to run forever, obeying the wish that their conscious could no longer stand to think, but the Park was her downfall.

Reaching the smattering of half grown trees, Max stopped automatically. The males slowed and approached her warily, circling one another. She knew most of their names, and a little bit about the ones she could name, but that truly did not matter to her. What mattered was the strongest. She grinned when one—Quail—closed in enough to reach out and touch her, only to be pulled away brutally to fight with another.

The part of her mind that was squelched under her dancing eyes and appreciation for violence knew this was unusual. Not that there would be a fight, but that so many males would be drawn to one female. Some at least should be discouraged by the sheer odds of competition, but none were. Max knew this was why she had been chosen for the experiment, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She was Alpha and she was waiting for her mate to be proven.

The fighting around her quickly grew to encompass the entire group in deadly one on one matches. More males were drawn into the park to battle, but no one managed to get within arm's reach of Max before some other contestant noticed and dropped their fight to go for him that dared. Max was well pleased with everything she saw, and some repressed portion of her mind was pleased too that so far no one had been killed. Those that fell either got back up to fight or skulked away to lick more serious wounds.

At the edge of the park, she saw him; his back rigid, his eyes wide. He took a controlled step backward, inching away from her. Their eyes locked. Max made her choice. She called to him by name, and some of the fighting stopped. One or two saw her choice for what it really was and moved away. Most ignored her voice completely. Alec let go and strode purposefully into the park.

The two nearest him went down immediately, one with a broken leg and the other a broken nose. The next pair standing between 494 and the potential mate was ready. The first went down with a solid punch to his throat, not quite hard enough to kill him, but enough to keep him down for a while. The second got off a strong kick that caught Alec right in the solar plexus. 494 grunted and knocked his opponent to the ground with a roundhouse to his left ear. The opponent did not get up. More were backing down now, falling to the fringes of the battlefield to see what happened next. Two who had been doing well remained, standing between Alec and Max.

Max knew their names, but they were not Alec and so their names did not matter. The one on the right—with dark brown hair—rushed in high, trading a rapid fire series of punches with Alec before the latter swept the legs from beneath his opponent and pressing a thumb against his jugular. Alec hesitated just long enough for the X5 to concede.

The blonde did not waste time watching their fight, he moved immediately for Max, using his counterpart to distract Alec. Max dodged his advances nimbly. Alec would finish soon and win her, of that she had no doubt, and she would take no lesser mate. She was right to wait, and she purred watching Alec punish the blonde for his impudence by not putting him down immediately.

When there was no one who dared to challenge left standing, Alec approached Max. Wild green eyes locked with feral brown orbs as the distance between the two transgenics closed like a cheetah on the back of an injured gazelle. Alec's arm roped around Max, crushing her to him. Instinct was the only thing left in him as his mouth dropped low to the place where her neck met her shoulder and he bit down, hard.

He bit her shoulder and marked her where every one could see. He flaunted his indisputable claim to the pack leader as he flaunted his new status as champion, but the simple truth was: he was the best, and he wanted it the most. Lila glanced down at her watch. Twenty minutes after Max breezed out of the apartment the losers were shaking their heads and slinking away in small groups. Terminal city would never able to forget this, and that felt really good.


	4. When You Come Back Down

Chapter 4: When you come back down

Alec woke alone and the world came crashing down around his bed. Her side, the side she'd fallen asleep on, was cold and her lingering scent on the pillow was just that—lingering. Max had been gone for hours. Alec squared his jaw against the pieces of broken world on his floor. She didn't sleep a fifth of the time that he did. Why would she hang around when she woke up, knowing that he would be out for ages? Alec allowed this almost pleasant fantasy to play through his mind for a few moments, followed by the equally pleasing fiction that she'd be back any moment with doughnuts and a kiss saying something saccharine and sarcastic like, "You looked so plum tuckered I figured you'd be out for hours, so I got breakfast."

Alec knew he was being an idiot. He remembered something Max once told him in one of the few moments of pure hopelessness she allowed no one but him to see during the siege. "Hope's for losers, Alec," she'd said softly, her voice thick with emotions. People had died that day. "It's a con job people trip behind until they finally get a grip on reality." She'd gone on about how the ordinaries would never accept transgenics, but that first part had made Alec wonder if she didn't suspect how he felt. For a minute, he thought she was trying to warn him away. He wished now he had taken that warning, whether it was intentional or not. Max was gone. She wasn't coming back. Alec owed her an apology.

He knocked on Max's apartment door fully clothed five minutes later. Straining his ears he heard the shower going. Alec knew Max felt the need to get clean—to wash his scent from every inch of her body—to scrub her skin until it was red and raw and untouched. Alec knew she had been showering for hours, and he didn't question the knowledge. He knocked a little louder and heard the shower turn off. A moment later, she answered the door in a tightly cinched bathrobe. Her eyes went wide when she identified him.

"Good morning," she stammered.

"Hi," he murmured, wondering why he hadn't had the decency to wash her scent away before coming here. It must be an unpleasant reminder, he knew without a doubt that she was remembering.

"Come in," she hesitantly offered and he obeyed. "Coffee?"

Alec declined awkwardly and sat down on her overstuffed, threadbare sofa. Max chose an armchair across from him.

"I'm sorry," she blurt out, pinning him suddenly with her eyes. Alec blinked. This was unexpected.

"I doubt you just decided it would be a good idea to take a little stroll through the park while you were in heat," Alec informed her warmly. If she wasn't going to attack and accuse him, this could be relatively painless. Well, he was having his heart ripped out piece by piece either way, but at least this way they could go back to being almost friends.

"No," Max agreed, "Lila and Shalala had an accomplice who switched out my sedative and I woke up in their apartment, but it was all wrong. I couldn't hold out. I never can," she murmured, no longer looking at him. She paused for a few moments and Alec had no clue what to say. Max swung her eyes back up to meet his again. "I'm sorry because it didn't have to be you," she said, sounding truly apologetic. That was it then, she must know. There would be no reason for her to apologize for really great sex if she didn't know she was ripping his heart out this morning. "You had control over yourself, until I singled you out, and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry I took your control away, Alec."

Alec didn't know what to say. She looked small, almost helpless, like she could never outrun Manticore or all of the horrible things it had done to her body. Worse, she looked truly sorry for hurting him, and that little bit of guilt was his fault. There was nothing he could do about that—nothing he could do to make her feel better about any of it. Normally, he would hug her at a time like this, but he didn't think she wanted him to. With the same unquestionable knowledge that told him she was holding back tears no matter how impassive her face was, he knew she expected him to leave now.

"Max," he swallowed the end of her name the way he always did—it was too precious to say aloud—and then he stopped. He would make this right somehow, but he still had nothing to say. Her head drooped slightly and the robe fell open just enough to reveal the bite wound on her shoulder. He swallowed and Max noticed. He'd done that to her. She pulled the robe tighter and rose.

"So, how about that coffee?" she offered, a grinning non sequitor. Her walk to the kitchenette was just a little too measured and he caught her limp that way rather than something more obvious that could only be faked in an X series. He'd done that, too.

"God I'm sorry, Max," he gasped, all air vacating his lungs.

She turned to look at him and he could actually feel the pain inherent in that simple movement. "Sorry for what?" she asked, her sweet smile not fooling him for a second. He rose shakily to his feet.

"I'll make it right," he promised, the words sounding hollow in his own ears. "You just, take the day off…" God, he knew how that must sound to her, but he didn't know how to put it. "You rest," he tried again, and that sounded a little better, "Yesterday was hard for you. I'll do the work thing, you don't have to."

Max nodded impassively. "Never say no to a day off," she told him.

"If I can get you anything, or…" he didn't really know what he was offering, just that he needed to do something to ease this incredible guilt that was tied like a weighted albatross around his neck.

"Go away," she said coldly, stabbing him so that for the first time he could understand what Shakespeare really meant when he said there are daggers in men's eyes.

"Right," he murmured, standing up and moving to the door. "Anything for a friend," he told her with a bitter smile.

The water was burning. After that first, intolerably cold shower she'd fixed the water heater herself. The cold water had done for starters, but everyone knew cold water never got anything really clean and Max needed to be really clean. She could still see him, sleeping like a boyish angel—so perfectly beautiful. Max held her head under the steaming water and scrubbed her hair furiously. Every strand of hair that had slid over his fingers needed to be washed clean with lavender scented shampoo. Her whole body needed to be scrubbed, she needed to be herself again before she could even hope to deal with what had happened. What had happened with Alec, anyway?

Not to say she didn't remember every detail with perfect photographic accuracy that never let her forget the things she was better off not remembering, but she didn't understand. Why Alec? No, she knew the answer to that one, too. Alec was the strongest. It was that simple. That was why he was her 2IC, wasn't it? Because he was the best of the best and willing to take on the responsibility. So maybe a better question—the real question—was why she had the sudden feeling that Alec was awake and unhappy. Max didn't want to think about that question, didn't want an answer to that one at all. She shoved her head further under the streaming water and scrubbed her face, trying to wipe the thoughts away.

There was a knock at the door. She didn't want to answer. It was Alec and he wanted to talk—she couldn't stand to talk right now—couldn't stand to think. She pushed that idea away. Alec was probably still asleep, and even if he was awake, tracking her down for pillow talk was probably not on his daily agenda. Mr. One Night was probably patting himself on the back for bagging the ice bitch and not having to put up with a lot of moony chatter. Max knew she was being unfair and didn't care as she cinched her bathrobe. If it wasn't Alec, she could deal with a visitor.

It was Alec. She managed not to scream or pull her hair out. "Good morning," she said in her nearest approximation to a normal voice.

"Hi," he answered. He wanted to talk. Against her better judgment that told her she would have nothing coherent to say, she let him in. He smelled like her—like last night—and it pulled her into a quick tumble of memories. She offered him coffee, which he declined, which was good because she wasn't entirely sure she actually had coffee. She tried not to wince when she realized that she'd actually offered him something. She never offered him anything—that was one of their things, like him calling her Maxie. It made them, well, them. The fact that it changed without notice made her nervous. Had she ruined everything?

"I'm sorry," she blurted, although she wasn't entirely sure what she was sorry for. She just hoped apologizing might get Alec to say something.

It worked, and she explained about the naturalists. She felt like she was passing the buck, blaming someone else for her mistake, and she tried to make him understand how sorry she was for taking his control away. He was hurting. She could read it all over his face, and even somewhere deeper. She felt it then, a connection that hadn't existed before. It was impossible, but it was there. She was feeling his pain, just the way Syl described it. She'd caused his pain and she was feeling it. She wanted to bash her skull through a window. Blow her brains out and hope it would all go away. She hadn't just taken away one choice, she'd taken away all of them. He would never forgive her for that. Things would never be the same between them. He was going to leave now, and he would never come back, not the same Alec, at any rate.

He said her name, swallowing the second half the way he did sometimes when they were having a really serious conversation and he couldn't really believe she was the one being this open. She tried to sense what he was going to say, but she couldn't feel it. He had to be blocking her. They'd been connected for a few hours and already he'd discovered a way to shut her out. She'd laugh at how typical it was, if it didn't make her want to cry so badly. He swallowed audibly and she realized her robe had slipped, just enough to show the bite mark on her shoulder.

She could tell the sight made him feel even worse; it made it difficult for him to hate her the way he should. Max shut the robe and tried the coffee approach again, she was sure she had some somewhere. He felt guilty. She could smell it like sulfur during a thunderstorm. Monsoons of guilt were falling from him like it was the rainy season, and this was Seattle. He apologized.

She tried to make it easy for him, to get rid of the guilt and go back to the point where he was waiting to leave. She grinned her trademark grin and asked what he thought he had to be sorry for. He stuttered back an answer that had nothing to do with her question. That was when she realized that he knew. She'd been uncertain before, hadn't felt anything definite, but now it was obvious. The guilt, the promises that didn't really promise anything and the offer designed to keep her away from him for a day all added up to an Alec that didn't love Max back.

Max wasn't even going to take the time to deal with the first part of that just now. He was offering to do something for her. Anything she wanted, other than his love, he would give her out of guilt. Having believed she understood this entire time, Max was surprised to suddenly comprehend Alec's statement during the whole thing with Rachel. She felt like throwing it back at him, "I don't want your pity, I want your absence." She couldn't get it out, though. All she could do was tell him to leave.

He had to throw it in her face when he left. She could have made it if he hadn't gone for that last parting shot. "Anything for a friend," it was practically his tag line. He said it nearly every day, whenever she asked him for a particularly annoying favor, or conversely, for something he really wanted to be doing anyway. Not that she often asked him for those sorts of things, but if she ever did ask him to infiltrate a strip club that would definitely be his response.

"Anything for a friend," he said with a twisted, forced grin. Anything for a friend, but nothing for Max. The door shut behind him, and Max began to shake so violently with her tears that she could almost believe her seizures were reoccurring.

It took a long time for her to stop crying. When she finished, she didn't feel better. She didn't feel worse, either, she was just out of tears. It had been a strangely self-pitying hour for the transgenic who spent her life not letting things get to her. It was good, in a weird way, to have the crying part done. Her head resting on her knees she let her thoughts go back to that first thing—the thing she was running away from. She was in love with Alec. It would be nice to be able to say it was all because of her stupid heat, but that was a cop out, if not a straight up lie. Mates were more than just heat, although that was the forge that fused them into the unbreakable and incomprehensible bond. Mates were people in love, and Max was in love with Alec. It got easier to think the more she thought it—not that ease made it any less horrible.

Max was in love with a man who she never had a kind word for. Then, that was why she never had a kind word for him, wasn't it? He was dangerous, he had always been dangerous. He was designed for her, her breeding partner, and when Logan was made permanently unavailable Alec was far too appealing. So Max made him unappealing in her mind, made him her scapegrace and frustrated herself when he always rose above her comments to prove that he was a good man.

He was the best man she knew, she couldn't love him otherwise. There for her, there for all of Terminal City, he always did what he could to help. He didn't always do the right thing. Sometimes he did things motivated purely by vengeance, like beating the crap out of the ordinaries that killed Biggs. Sometimes he did things motivated by greed, like selling steroids. The truth was, Max loved him because he didn't always do everything exactly as the social contract demanded. He was a jerk. He was also a soldier who understood her past, while managing to be anything but an automaton. He did everything with a vivacity that Max couldn't help but respect and adore. She couldn't help but love him, no matter how dangerous that was. No matter what sort of poison she was.

That thought stopped Max short. Alec was dangerous because he was a threat to her feelings for Logan, and for the same reason that her feelings for Logan were so very threatening. Putting your heart on the line was a spectacular way to be hurt, Max knew, but she was equally worried about hurting Alec, and she had no reason to be. Alec didn't love her, so it shouldn't matter if she was poison. The siblings she killed had all shared her feelings, the way Logan had every time she almost killed him. Besides, Max was past that depressed outlook. She was happy with the siblings that now surrounded her and the friends that filled Terminal City. She was done thinking about herself as poison, even if Renfro's words crept into her thoughts from time to time.

It hurt to move physically, but it also hurt to remember the things she'd made Alec do, so Max didn't even twitch when there was another nock on the door. It wasn't Alec, that she knew for certain this time, but she still couldn't answer it. She couldn't move and feel that should-be-pleasant pain in her abdomen. The door opened in spite of the telepathic "Go away" she was sending forcefully to her visitor.

When Jondy saw Max curled in a little ball of hair, skin and bathrobe on her old, threadbare sofa her heart broke. Max's cheeks were stained with dried tears, but when she looked up at Jondy her eyes were empty. Jondy moved immediately to take her sibling in her arms and fend the world away, but Max stopped her with a simple "Don't".

Jondy stood statue still. "Why not?" she asked quietly; she was unwilling to obey without a very good reason.

"He was sitting here," Max murmured. "He was sitting here and it still smells like him, but if you come it will just smell like you and he'll really be gone." Tears broke in Max's eyes, running down her cheeks again as an extremely gentle sob or two racked her already broken body.

Jondy sank into the armchair across from Max, not moving to hug her sister, not speaking until the tears stopped of their own accord.

"Want to tell me about it?" she asked when Max looked up at her again, wiping her eyes with the collar of the bathrobe, which then fell open to reveal an extremely nasty bite mark.

"I love him," Max said, feeling her heart break again saying it out loud. "I love him and he doesn't love me. Oh, God, Jondy, you should have felt his guilt when he realized how I felt. It was like some tangible thing."

"Felt his guilt?" the transgenic asked, trying not to set off the water works as she did so.

"I," Max choked and had to fight for control for a few seconds. It struck Jondy how incredible this was from a woman who could keep an impassive expression when facing down an entire invading army with a spork. "I think he's my mate," she whispered.

"And that's so horrible you've been locked in your apartment crying for hours?" her sister asked very gently.

"He doesn't want to be," Max explained. Jondy cocked a disbelieving eyebrow. "He doesn't. I felt his guilt in a way I doubt you can understand. He doesn't love me, he is my friend, but he doesn't love me. He kept saying it, over and over. Anything for a friend, it will be all right, and every other hackneyed way of saying 'it's not you, it's me' you can think of. He's usually more articulate, but then I doubt he was expecting to wake up mated with me this morning."

"He probably wasn't expecting it," Jondy agreed, "And he isn't in a very good mood, I'll grant you, but I wouldn't have thought being mated with you would be something he'd object to. You're the one I'd guess for going ballistic."

"You've seen him?" Max asked quickly almost missing the rest of the statement. "How is he?"

Jondy hesitated. "He isn't happy," she answered truthfully. "Not the way I'd expect him to be after finding out he'd managed to land you as a mate."

"What is he like?" she asked again, her head coming all the way off of her knees. This was encouraging enough that Jondy decided to just tell the whole truth.

"While you were… with Alec… we were trying to figure out how you got out during heat. No one believed for a second that it was something you intended to do, plus your restraints weren't broken. This morning Alec marched right into headquarters—smelling a little like you, but he'd obviously showered—and told us it was the Naturalists that abducted you. He took Shalala and Lila into custody immediately and somehow managed to get the names of four others who were involved in the plot. There will be a court proceeding, they've already been charged with breaking the Terminal City Pact and there is a lot of discussion about what else they will be charged with. That was pretty much wrapped up an hour ago and he's been at the hospital ever since, talking with the boys he hurt. He's apologizing, I think, but all of the injured have been really good about it." Jondy sighed and looked out the window. "It looks like your Naturalist buddies were right about that much at least. No one except Alec seems at all angry about being compelled to fight or the injuries they sustained."

"He said he'd make it right," Max murmured, putting her head back on her knees, but finding that she didn't feel like crying. "Of course he was talking about getting revenge."

"You don't think it's deserved?" her sister asked curiously.

"I don't know whether it's deserved or not," Max answered. "My judgment is too clouded by the way I want to hurt all of the people who hurt me this way."

"Alec included?" asked Jondy.

Max paused. "No," she said. "It isn't his fault he doesn't love me. I've hurt him enough in the past. I don't want Alec to be hurt anymore."

"Are you sure," Jondy paused and reconsidered, but then asked anyway. "Are you sure he doesn't love you?"

Max looked up at her sister in surprise. That Jondy would ask that was alarming enough, but that she could ask that was almost enough to knock Max off the sofa. Jondy did have a point, though. It was best to be certain and Max realized that while she was probably right, she didn't have any absolute proof. She'd never said she loved Alec and he'd never said he didn't love her. Maybe there was some hope, and the idea that there could be some would destroy her in a way that certainty either way never could. She focused on Alec to be positive.

Focusing on him was like focusing on breathing. Alec was there in the back of her head whether she paid attention or not, and she hadn't been paying any attention, but in focusing on this weird bond between them, she found she could sort of control it as she could her breathing. He was talking with someone he'd hurt. It was the blonde who Alec had punished for attempting to take Max without fighting for her, she knew because he was the only one Alec could possibly feel so smugly apologetic toward. They were laughing together and Alec was feeling a little sheepish, but not horrible. That was good; at least he wasn't too upset about the fight. At least he wouldn't blame her for that for long.

Max wanted to know how he felt about her, though, how he felt about last night. She needed to be completely convinced that he didn't love her. As soon as she wondered about what had happened between them, she felt it. It was as though her wondering about that while focusing on him triggered the thoughts in him. She wondered if he knew what she was doing, and felt sort of sneaky when she realized he might not.

There it was again, the guilt. He very clearly felt very guilty for hurting her. That was enough to make her want to snap out of it, but she really had to know, so she continued to focus on his feelings. Waiting for some real, genuine proof. She heard it, then, like a flashback, only his point of view. Feeling actual words in his head was a trip, though one she would have loved if she'd been wrapped securely in his arms exploring their bond the way people in love were supposed to do. _Max knows_ his voice rumbled through her mind. Then it was her own voice—a memory of looking at her as she sat atop building with him during the siege, looking at the moon. _"Hope's for losers," _her voice said,_ "It's a con job people trip behind until they finally get a grip on reality."_ Alec must know she was there. He'd had just as long as she did to figure out whatever messed up biological thing was happening between them and he was using it to send her a message. A message from herself was one that she couldn't ignore because it answered her real question so firmly. Did she have any right to hope? Apparently, she did not. She tried to tell herself that was okay as she looked up at Jondy.

"He really and truly does not love me," she informed her sister. Jondy looked sadly accepting.

"I really thought," she began, then stopped. Jondy took a deep breath, "The heart wants what the heart wants. I know how it feels when it wants something it can't have, it sucks."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "I said that to him once. We were sitting on the Space Needle, talking. Love sucks was my deep philosophical thought of the day." Max looked at her sister thoughtfully. "I wonder if I'd said something else, explained all the drama that the day had put up between me and Logan, maybe something could have happened with Alec then. Maybe if we'd just started dating and not been thrown this fucking screwball called my life I would have had a chance."

Jondy needed to cut into this rhetoric before her sister started weeping again. "Let's have a girly day. I'll score us some chick flick videos and something with chocolate in it, we can sit around talking about the pre pulse actors and I can tell you how at least you don't have diabetes. What do you say?"

Max frowned. "Pass," she murmured. "I've been doing the self pity thing for like," she looked at the clock, "Six hours since Alec left. It's getting boring. Time for me to wake up and deal with life. Maybe I'm poison and I'll destroy Alec, or maybe his guilt will do me in. I don't know and it doesn't really matter. What matters is Terminal City. I can't believe I'm being this selfish when the code was broken and transgenic law is about to have its first test."

Jondy looked at her sister with even more respect than she usually showed. Whatever anyone said about Max, she genuinely cared about her fellow transgenics. "Are you sure you're up to it?" Jondy inquired. "Alec told you he would handle it."

"My shit isn't important," Max stated firmly. She stood up. "Let me get dressed and we'll go."

"Max!" her concerned sister interjected, giving the transgenic leader pause. "Max," she repeated in a softer voice. "You've always had a tough mouth, even when we were kids. That's how we were raised, but you've always had it worse than the rest of our siblings for one reason or another. Alec can handle this and you kind of deserve a self pity day if you're mated to a man who will eventually feel trapped and unhappy no matter how beautiful you are." Jondy knew her bluntness cut, but Max needed the neck of her bottle hacked away.

Max shook her head. "You don't get it, Jondy. I've found something more important than my own issues. I won't ever abandon Terminal City, I fought too hard for the right to protect it. This is important—it is the first serious infraction of the Terminal City Pact since it was written. I need to be there to make sure the precedent we set is the one that will keep our children safe and free."

"Okay."

Max went into her bedroom to get dressed. She resisted the absurd urge to take a shower as part of her routine. She was clean enough.


	5. Stand By Me

Chapter 5: Stand by me

When Max waltzed into the command center with Jondy at her back, more than one person was a little surprised to see her. The most surprised might have been Alec, whether he could theoretically sense her approach or not. His jaw certainly dropped in the most noticeable manner before he pulled himself together.

"Hey, Max," he said. His voice sounded strangely loud in his own ears.

"Alec," she replied equivocally.

"Didn't expect to see you up and about today," this time he sounded awkward even to the rest of the TC transgenics in the command center.

Max could feel that guilt again. Alec could be infuriating. "You are so self- centered," she snapped. "This isn't about you or your stupid guilt—this isn't even about me. This is about Terminal City, and if you want to keep me away you'd better be prepared to do a lot more damage than you did yesterday." Approval was radiating from everyone and being sucked away by an angry black hole surrounding Alec.

"That's right," he spat back, "I forgot—Max can't show weakness. Max can't let anyone help her. She needs to save the day even if she is the one in the most pain."

The wall around Max cracked so visibly as she drew a breath replenishing the wind knocked from her lungs by Alec's attack that several transgenics in the Command Center had to reign in their instinct to physically restrain Alec.

"Alec," Jondy snapped, "Chill. You have absolutely no right to talk to Max that way, so can it. She's just trying to do her job."

Alec looked even angrier than he had a moment before, then he was just a soldier completely faceless. "Right. You're, right, I'm sorry, Max. You have every right to be here."

Max wasn't listening. She looked like she was going to throw up. Jondy put a hand on her arm. "Are you okay, Max?"

"Am _I_ okay?" Max looked up at her sister. There was a murderous gleam in her eye suddenly. "Back off him! He can talk to me any way he wants. It's none of your business how he talks to me."

Jondy resisted the urge to jerk away from the angry transgenic and instead wrapped an arm around her sister's waist. "I'm sorry, Alec." Alec's mask had broken slightly to show confusion. Jondy was still looking at him with a small measure of hostility, but it didn't come through in her voice.

Alec looked around at the other transgenics. He made a decision. "It's all good," he answered with a congenial grin. "We've got something a whole lot more important to do, as much fun as airing our dirty laundry in command is, let's get on with it."

"Right," Max agreed. "Have you assembled the court?"

"Yes," he answered, "everyone's been assembled. I'd assumed we'd be working with four judges, but an odd number will make majority a lot easier to come by."

"Four judges?" asked Max. "Don't you mean we will be working with three judges? We can't judge this crime, Alec."

"Why not," he asked impassively. "It's part of our job description."

"You know why not," she growled, undeterred. "I know I wouldn't be able to deal out justice in this scenario."

"You said you needed to be here for this," he argued, still emotionless in expression, but Max could feel the underlying pool of magma. Alec wasn't just mad; there was a logical anger that intended to do everything in his power to exact disproportional vengeance. Alec had considerable power in Terminal City, power that Max couldn't let him use for this.

"I do, and I will be here. I plan to present evidence and make absolutely sure justice is served, but I can't be the one to decide how they are punished, to decide how much they transgressed. We both know you can't be either."

"You don't know what I am and am not capable of Maxie," he growled.

"Of all the things you could accuse me of in this moment, that's not one I'd even imagine you picking," she snapped.

Alec ignored her, his voice low and dangerous because if he lost control others might start agreeing with Max about his ability to judge fairly. "What do they deserve Max? They're just as responsible for hurting you as I am. What deserves to happen to them?"

Her pain returned just as easily as she'd pushed it away. Did he need to bring it up? Did he need to use their bond, to force her to feel his own protective instincts? The attack on two fronts was too much, especially when a very large part of Max wanted exactly the same thing. "They deserve to be shot," she growled shoving him back.

Straight backed, Alec just smiled blandly at her, "and Terminal City will see justice done."

That response was enough to set Max back to her own emotions. She couldn't risk bloodshed. She couldn't risk Terminal City. "There's a reason victims don't get to sit on the ordinary jury, Alec," she growled. "I know I'm not impartial and so I have extracted myself from the proceedings. Can you honestly tell me that you're not doing this for revenge? Can you look me in the eye and tell me you aren't doing this out of guilt?" Max smiled. It was not a kind expression. "If you hurt them, will it make you feel better about how much you are hurting me?" She'd figured out how he'd projected and it wasn't hard to hit him. It had never been difficult to lash out at Alec. He staggered visibly under the pain of unrequited love.

Jondy watched as Max did something to hurt Alec, but she didn't interfere. The two needed to air things out sooner or later or they would lose their friendship. It was just a lucky break they'd started this soon, and Jondy wasn't about to waste months by interrupting just because they were in the middle of the command center.

Alec straightened, staring at Max with real tears teasing the corners of his eyes. "What was that?" he asked, his voice trembling under his obvious efforts to keep it steady.

Max looked even angrier than before. "What? So you found someone other than yourself to blame and now I'm supposed to pretend… what? That you aren't stuck with me? That we aren't stuck like this?"

"Stuck like what, Maxie?" asked Alec, his voice sounded vulnerable to Jondy, but Max didn't seem to notice. She was on a rant.

"Don't play dumb with me, mister!" she snapped. "You can have your stupid guilt and you idiotic vengeance quest, but even with them you're bright enough to know what I'm talking about."

Alec just starred at Max while Jondy and the rest of the command center watched the unfolding drama.

"You are bright enough to know what I'm talking about," Max said again, this time uncertainty bringing a quiver to her voice.

Alec continued to look at Max, his soldierly face slipping to reveal an expression of fear that bordered on longing.

"There is no way you couldn't know what I'm talking about," Max whispered completely immune to the number of people staring at her curiously. The only person in her world was Alec, and he was getting closer to her.

"Max," he whispered finally, his eyes wavering gently as he opened up and washed her away with a slow tidal wave of emotion. "I'm in love with you."

"Oh Alec," she murmured, her face inches from Alec's. "We're not very straightforward people, are we?"

His lips twitched into a smirk as they closed to capture his target. "That's not your line, Maxie."

"Oh no?" she mumbled. Her eyes drifting nearly shut so she could bask in the open warmth of feeling emanating from her mate. "Enlighten me."

"Something like, 'I love you, too,'" Alec suggested. He pulled away slightly when she tried to close the final distance.

"How about 'Shut up and kiss me, pretty boy'?" she asked, grabbing his shirt with one fist and crushing her lips up to his.

X5-494 pulled his mate to his body, kissing her, claiming her publicly and thoroughly enjoying the hooting catcalls of his well intentioned comrades.

"Okay," Max said, puling away with a grin on her face, "I think we have work to do, people." The laughing crowd didn't make a move to disperse. In fact, they were now clapping. Max's irritating mate simply smirked and leaned in to kiss her again. She jerked her head back, "I said bip, people."

"Oh, fine," he grumbled, letting her go.


	6. The Trial

Chapter 6: The Trial

The courtroom was actually a remodeled theater near the center of Terminal City. During the siege it had been used as a meeting place because (aside from the parking garage) it was the one comfortable place that could fit all of the transgenics at once. Nowadays it was used for actual plays as well as town hall meetings. Given that a troupe of transgenics could learn a play with costumes and blocking in an easy going week of rehearsals, this was actually a popular pastime.

During trials, or other times when the council of judges was convened, a long, heavy oak table was put on the stage with five chairs behind it. Those addressing the council tended to stand in the audience or on the stage, but in this case there were solid chairs for the guilty as well, where the six Naturalists submitted to the indignity of being manacled. Max and Alec decided to take a place in the front row, with the other onlookers who might be called to witness. Actually, Alec decided to sit there, Max simply followed him and sat on his lap, muttering very distracting things about the trial ending quickly.

Mole, heading the tribunal in absence of mayor and alderman, seemed to be acceding to her wishes. The facts of the case were stated very quickly by the defendants and their assistants. Jondy testified to securing Max, and things went smoothly when Lila simply admitted to kidnapping her. Max was called on to present the facts of her encounter, which she did with the same willing speed that had thus far characterized the trial.

"They didn't force me to do anything, which, I suppose, is the problem. They didn't make me go outside, in fact, they even reminded me verbally what going outside would mean. I'm not sure I can blame them for not forcibly restraining me, after all, I'd kick their asses so hard they wouldn't be able to sit in those chairs now," she testified. "Then again, I'm feeling very lenient just now. About an hour ago I wanted to force them to commit seppuku; you should have asked me for dirt earlier." Behind her, Alec laughed.

"Logan?" he asked softly, restraining another giggle. "Really?"

"What?" she asked him. After a second of eye contact she snapped, "There's nothing funny about that!"

"Well, not funny 'ha ha', really," Alec defended, "I've just always seen him as a Frost, you know, fighting the good fight: 'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep' and all that bull."

"Could we please get back to Max's testimony," Mole grunted, "for those of us who can't see what the hell you two love kittens are thinking at one another?"

"That's pretty much it," Max said, sitting back on her mate's lap. "I chose to leave the apartment of my own hormonally influenced will. Technically, they didn't break that porting of the pact. Although you should beat them up a little bit for, you know, ABDUCTING me."

"Agreed," Dix stated, scribbling down a few more notes from his place at Mole's right.

"Does anyone else have any evidence to add?" Mole asked formally. When no one came forward, the three justices went into a huddle. They came to an agreement quickly.

"The six of you are sentenced to a full year of grunt work for tech ops without pay and five additional years of probation," Dix stated. "Failure to comply with Luke's every order and any attempt to skip out on your punishment will result in permanent exile from Terminal City." He banged his steel gavel with a final clang and the two X-5s acting as bailiffs unlocked the manacles.

There was another matter to discuss before the meeting could end. It was brought to the floor by a blonde transgenic in a cast. Just looking at the male's injuries, Max began rubbing against Alec distractedly. She remembered the punishments her mate had given this man. She also remembered what Syl said about not leaving the house for a month when she first mated with Krit. Camping out with Alec would probably be a good idea, just until she got used to their connection. He could sense her instinctive approval and they were bouncing feelings of lust between their minds, magnifying it on each impact.

"Motion to call a vote for a change to the Terminal City Pact," the X-5 asked clearly.

"Section and Article?" asked Dix, even though everyone already knew what the matter on the floor was.

"Section 3 of Article 4," the injured soldier indicated the passage that should have kept him from being hurt, "Motion for it to be stricken entirely from the pact." More than one second was heard from around the room.

"Very well," Mole said. "All male X series in favor or striking the passage please rise." The majority of that description stood. "All opposed," he inquired, a few males who had not been close enough to be affected by the fight for Max rose. "Abstentions," he asked finally. Many of the mated males stood at this. Alec made a half hearted attempt to rise, but Max was still rubbing against him: a lap dance far superior to the one she'd given him at the Blowfish Tavern.

"Motion clearly passes," Dix stated. "Article 4 Section 3 shall be stricken from the Terminal City Pact, and a female X series shall be forced to take no precautions that she does not deem necessary during her heat."

"Any other business?" Mole asked formally. When nothing was raised, he adjourned the meeting.

"We should go home now," Max purred against Alec's ear so that he did not protest her pulling away from him.

"Agreed. Boy or girl?" he asked as they began walking briskly back to Max's apartment.

"What?"

"The baby we're about to make," he explained as though she was being an idiot. "Do you want it to be a boy or a girl?"

Max simply took his hand and began running at top speed in answer to his question.


End file.
